Healthy Families Lower Hutt

Working together to make the places we live, learn, work and play healthier.

Healthy Families Lower Hutt is part of a large scale initiative called Healthy Families NZ. This initiative is funded by the Ministry of Health and administered by Council: together, we're working to prevent the rise of obesity and preventable chronic diseases.

Healthy Families Lower Hutt is one of ten Healthy Families NZ locations around the country.

How does it work?

We connect with and support local people and organisations that have the ability to create healthy change where we spend our time, making it easier to work together to have an even greater impact.

Lower Hutt's vision is to be a great place to live, learn, work and play. Lower Hutt can’t be great if our people aren’t healthy. By making our environments healthier, we’re laying the foundations for a healthier future for everyone.

We’re currently working with schools, workplaces, food outlets, sports clubs, marae, places of worship, businesses, community champions, health professionals and more within our community to make a real difference, now and into the future.

Where are we at?

In the two years since we started, together we’ve already made substantial changes to make the Hutt healthier:

Increasing access to water as the drink of choice across our community. This resulted in Council investing in seven new water fountains for our communities; we've committed to keep improving access to water in public spaces.

Removing unhealthy sponsorship in sport through our player of the day reward system; we've replaced unhealthy food rewards with physical activity opportunities.

Council, Healthy Families and Enspiral collaborated on the Hutt Real Food Challenge. This event finds creative local solutions to help our local food system. This resulted in six new initiatives, including alternatives to chocolate fundraisers in our school community and a food rescue scheme.

Council now has one of the most comprehensive smokefree outdoor public places policies in New Zealand. We're showing strong leadership and contributing to a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025.

We aim to reduce alcohol related harm through recent updates to Lower Hutt's alcohol bylaw and local alcohol policy.

We've partnered with the Human Resources Institute of NZ: Hutt Valley branch. Together we’ve established a Workplace Wellbeing Special Interest Group, brought the WorkWell programme to the Hutt Valley, and we were key partners in the development of Good4Work.

We launched Turning the Tide, a social movement to make Lower Hutt a healthier place to live, learn, work and play.

Council has led the way as a health promoting workplace, supported by a strong internal wellbeing policy. It's improved and invested in services and facilities that support our community’s health and wellbeing: eg, the successful Walter Nash Centre has had over one million visitors since its doors opened in October 2015.